Jr. A Western Final Report Brian Broks September 2014

I was the RMLL and Jr. A representative at the Jr. A Western Final hosted by the Coquitlam Adanacs. This was the first Meeting of the Winners of the and BC Jr. Leagues with the winner advancing to the . I was there on behalf of the Mountaineers.

The Western final is somewhat different as it is a best of five and not tournament play. As rep for the RMLL, I have a few roles. I am one of three committee members who support the CLA Convener (name escapes me) for the series. I was joined on this committee by the BCJALL Commissioner Ken Wood. We represent our respective leagues, make sure the teams are aware that we are playing by official CLA rules and act as the discipline committee for the series.

My second role was to support the Calgary Mountaineers as the Alberta representative. The Mountaineers are coached by Rick Windl and Managed by Duane Bratt. I have worked with Duane in the past and working with both Rick and Duane was easy. There were no discipline issues that needed to be dealt with during the series. I also acted as the go between for the team and the CLA convener. The only issues that arose here was some questionable officiating in game two for which we approached the CLA convener to assign the referees from the first game for the reminder of the series.

One area of concern for me throughout the series was the consistency of the officiating which was addressed after game two. However, this may have been less of an issue had we sent an Alberta official to the series. In the future I would recommend that we choose an Alberta official to be part of the officiating team.

The other concerns I have are: Being prepared to host a Minto Cup in the event we win/ would have won the Western Final, the host of next year’s Western Final, and being fully prepared to win a Western Final.

If the Mountaineers had won the series we were not prepared to host the Minto Cup. We did not have an arena booked, nor was there a committee in place to host a National Championship of this caliber. This needs to be addressed.

Next year we are hosting the Western Final. Presuming it will be held the similar dates as this year we will have great difficulty finding floor time for an event like this at that time of year. And, where/who is going to host?

I don’t believe we were in the best position possible to win the Western Final. Calgary was strong early in all of the games but could not keep the pace with Coquitlam for the entire game. I believe the only remedy for this is to somehow join the two leagues. We would have had a higher chance of success if we would have been playing this pace and caliber of all year long.

All in all, we have to look at the Western Final as a huge success and stepping stone for Alberta Lacrosse. For the first time since creating the Junior A league in Alberta we were successful in defeating what would have been a Minto Cup team in the previous tournament format. The Calgary Mountianeers represented the province of Alberta, the ALA and the RMLL in outstanding form.

Game 1: Adanacs 14 - Mountaineers 7

Game 2: Adanacs 13 – Mountaineers 6

Game 3: Mountaineers 9 – Adanacs 8

Game 4: Adanacs 7 – Mountaineers 6

Brian Broks

Jr. A Commissioner